Russia, Turkey and Iran have prepared a text of the Moscow declaration on immediate steps in resolving the Syrian conflict and are ready to guarant its implementation, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced.

“Today experts are working on the text of the Moscow declaration on immediate steps toward resolving the Syrian crisis. This is a thorough, extremely necessary document,” the Russian defense minister said at the meeting with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Dehghan.

Shoigu said that all previous “attempts to agree on joint efforts undertaken by the US or their partners were doomed” and added that “none of them exerted real influence on the situation on the ground.”

The Russian official emphasized that the approval of the declaration at the level of defense and foreign ministers shows a willingness to “act as guarantors and jointly resolve the urgent issues of the Syrian crisis.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu is also currently in Moscow for talks with Russia’s Sergey Lavrov and Iran’s Mohammad Javad Zarif. Cavusoglu said that the trilateral cooperation has proven its effectiveness in eastern Aleppo and vowed to spread ot to other parts of Syria.

Cavusoglu said tha the ceasefire should be implemented in all parts of Syria, but it doesn’t concern ISIS or Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra).

They say it won’t fail like western backed ceasefires except it’s so similar because they still think they’ll be able to distinguish “moderates” from full blown terrorists. The issue is that many groups in the FSA will fight next to al-qaeda as an ally and the rest of the FSA will fight next to those who support al-qaeda. So the question is, is there really a single group they can distinguish as “moderate”? If memory serves correct the only time western backed ceasefires exist is to either let terrorists survive another few months or to resupply the terrorists. This ceasefire I think it’s more about letting Palmyra be recaptured without having to fight the FSA although obviously that’s the theory and probably won’t go according to plan.

VGA

I think the goal is to deescalate the situation while the SAA take Palmyra and all pockets around Damascus, while training more reservists and deploying them in and around Aleppo.

Douglas Houck

I see this as Russia telling the US that the days of US hegemony are over, and it is now a multi-polar world.

At this point a “cease fire” with non-jihadist terrorists is mostly propaganda as by definition if you are fighting the Syrian army and allies you are a terrorist and if your are not fighting, then we have a “cease-fire”.

The earliest the west can meet on discussing Syria is Feb., after President-elect Trump is inaugurated. By then, most of the issues dealing with the western Al-Qaeda groups will have been resolved, leaving just ISIS to discuss.

The key to all this is Turkey. Can the Russians, Iranians, and Syrians convince President Erodgan to reach a compromise and shut down Turkey’s support of the jihadist fighters. They have to show President Erodgan that it is in Turkey’s best interests to stop the fighting in Syria so everyone can win economically and long term politically. As the EU is not likely to ever admit Turkey, it actually makes sense for Turkey to support the Russians in this regard.